Well, let's stick with the proper priorities: first, Roxie. Thankfully, she's given up on hatching babies for the time being. What, you may ask, cured her from her stubborn broodiness?
After multiple days of removing her from her nest several times throughout the day--with no success--I decided to try a different strategy: make the nest too uncomfortable to occupy! This broken coin-sorter just happened to be sitting on the workbench in the garage next to their coop. Hmmm, I thought, those look like uncomfortably sharp edges....
So, I tucked it, pointy side up, in her nest and went on with my day. The other girls, who hadn't lost their minds in mommy-mania, could still use other nesting spots, and my hope was that Roxie would be her stubborn self and refuse to switch nests. Which is exactly what happened. Pathetic that I'm keeping track, I know, but the score is Maggie =1, Roxie =0 in the Broody Wars.Even better, after about two weeks of sulking and shedding a few feathers (I would guess a hormonal thing--although I feared she might be heading into another molt, just for spite,) she is back to laying her pretty blue eggs and dishing out sass to any human that crosses her path. Ah, normalcy.
OK. So, chickens...check. Now, on to: my new JOB.
Yes, folks, after a year of unemployed student-dom, I have a boss. Are you ready for the almost-scary-synchronicity? Well, I am now working with a fellow Rocky Ripple citizen who also happens to be an earlier graduate of my masters at St. Mary-of-the-Woods. Her name is Angela, and she focused on community gardens for her project. A few years later, and she is now heading Fall Creek Gardens: Urban Growers Resource Center...and I am officially an employee! FCG is both a community garden for the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood, and also a resource center for anyone involved with urban gardening or agriculture in central Indiana. I am very excited to be joining this organization in its early stages--so many dreams, plans, and goals to pursue. For a great summation of some of our ideas check out this post on the website www.fallcreekgardens.org.
Since I tend toward cliches, here is one for you: it never rains, but it pours! You may remember from last fall that I was very excited about an event in another part of town called the Irvington SkillShare--a wonderful day of different folks demonstrating various ways to live a less consumptive, more creative urban life. Well, last weekend was the second annual SkillShare, and around halfway through the week, I was notified that the bread-baker had to cancel at the last minute--could I do it? Did I know someone else who might want to?
Well. You know how I feel about baking bread. I had some possible scheduling conflicts, however, so I mentioned this need to my baking buddy Amy and our mutual friend Chris, who bakes all the bread his family of seven needs each week. We got together to plan. Ideas started bubbling up everywhere...like (dare I say it?) a big bowl of yeast. The next thing you know, we've come up with a name for this trifecta of bakers: the breadgeeks. Then someone thinks to check and see if we can get a gmail account with this name in case visitors to the SkillShare want to contact us after the fact with questions. --and yep! that email is available.
Hmmm.
What the hell, we say, and check to see if the domain name is available...and yes it is. Wow! As a ".com" too, which never happens anymore. OK--we checked Facebook--no other breadgeeks there either! Ack! More crazy synchronicity!
One wild hour later, we had the bare bones of a plan: we are the breadgeeks. We believe that everyone is capable of baking cheap, yummy, healthy bread for their families. No fancy equipment necessary, or gourmet flours (although we do splurge sometimes)--no need to buy another loaf, bagel, cracker, or tortilla! No need to fear the yeast! The next thing you know, we had Tshirts:
Our purpose, we decided, was to take the baking to the people...whether by workshops, demonstrations, or best of all, in-home baking parties! Want to learn how to make a loaf of artisan bread, some delicious sandwich wraps, and a bag of graham crackers? Well, then call your friends--and the breadgeeks. We'll come over, pop a bottle of wine, and teach you everything you need to know.
The SkillShare was wonderful. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. It is always fantastic to chat with people who care about the same things that you care about, and it is even better if you can feed them something yummy at the same time. Chris held court in the kitchen, demonstrating his version of no-knead artisan breads, while Amy & I fried up some corn tortillas on an electric griddle at our display table. We offered bagels I'd made the night before for sampling, the bread from Chris, the tortillas--and then for the crowning touch, Amy rolled out and baked her graham cracker dough. Heaven.
SO. I think that brings us largely up-to-date. We are working on a website (www.breadgeeks.com) and blog (www.breadgeeks.wordpress.com) and to solidify our ideas about classes and workshops. We are also composing our "breadgeeks manifesto" which we promise to make a fun read. If you are a Facebook-er, please visit the breadgeeks page there and "like" us to help spread the baking fun!
Jason and I also made time to visit the State Fair somewhere in the middle of all this, and I think I embarrassed Jason by talking (aloud) to all of the chickens and roosters on display. Nothing terribly surprising. Several of them talked back. :) I am gearing up to make a batch of blender soap in the near future, so stay tuned for that adventure! I will also be reporting back about the success of an herbal bug spray that is finally ready to be strained and bottled. Lots of fun stuff going on around here!
Oh, dang--almost forgot to mention: the Indianapolis Star sent a reporter and photographer to interview me about keeping chickens last week as well! The story should be published in September, prior to the Tour de Coops, so stay tuned! That was a few days-worth of panicked housecleaning and coop-tidying, let me tell you! Whew.... How's your August going?
Hello, Just found you through Irvington skill share's distribution of your blog post. I'm glad you were able to fill in the bread spot. I was asked but I couldn't do it this year. I might make cheese for next years although I was surprised to see that they had a cheese maker this year so we'll see how things look next year. Its good to hear that you are trying to turn this little opportunity into a bigger one. Good luck with everything. Love the chickens, we have 19 hens out here int he boonies and I love each one of them :)
ReplyDeleteWelcome! I would love to try my hand at cheese-making...that is something I've been longing to delve into for a while. What kinds do you make?
ReplyDeleteAnd chickens--how great are they? Between the manure for the garden, the eggs, and just the general funny chicken behavior, we enjoy our girls so much. Anyway, thanks for reading!